I don't see any reason why somebody would join a prop firm other than for training and experience. And they charge for training anyways, so why not just pay for your own training and trade on your own? You're going to lose either way in the beginning, weather you join a prop firm or not. Most people do. And if you don't then you aren't going to learn from your mistakes or you have some secret illegal trading strategy(congratulations!) But the only ones getting rich at these prop firms are the owners. They tell you when to trade, how to trade, how many shares to trade, blah, blah, blah. It's all about commissions. The more you trade, the more commissions you make. They don't let you take off early if you don't feel like trading anymore. You have to trade all the way up to the bell weather you like it or not. What good is having all that leverage if they lock your account as soon as it goes below a certain amount. As soon as your original buying power goes below that amount, not your total leverage. It isn't a good deal for you. It's only a good deal for the owner.
Thought I would contribute a little after a long drinking day. I've never actively traded equity futures, because I never saw an edge in the market. I don't mean guys aren't making good cash doing it, its just that there much better things to trade. This was until last month. The Merc has finally given in on the importance of annonimity on the trades, so guys like Igor will have a harder time bulling the market. Anyway a friend of mine all of a sudden started banging these things out on a large scale. I said, lets go, they are addicting little bastards. Traded 2000 of them first day 10 at a time. Two weeks now of trading these things and all I can say, in the right market they are a great product. I think FESX is probably a little better of a trade. Less talent to compete against. Anyway just thought I would contribute somewhat once a year. Night all, love the world cup. Be good Barry, Don, Bob, Gary
The last month money has been falling from the sky on US SIFs. I don't follow. Nothing better imo the last month. Jia, I may have to go back to IB or at least keep and IB account as well, as my current broker doesn't support many of the overseas products. nitro
Not sure where you get your info good fellow, but I just want to set the record straight here. Bright Trading has commissions of 1c/share and lower (do over 1000 shares of a NYSE trade and everything over the first 1000 is 0.4c/share - also other volume discounts). As a remote, he seat fee is $200 and you get that rebated if you do 200K shares in a month. If you're in an office, the desk fee is $400 and you get that rebated after a year if you average over 1M shares per month. I have no idea what you're talking about with a "$500.00 a month NYSE fee's". We have nothing like that. The class and bootcamp is not required, but recommended for new traders. The class is $1000 for 3 days and the boot camp is $1500 for 4 weeks (don't know where else you can work side-by-side with professional traders for 4 solid weeks, live all day long for just $1500). I don't know where you get the idea that we pressure people to trade a lot. I have numerous traders traders that make six-figure incomes and trade a couple hours a day or less! I have a number of part-time traders that have other jobs and trade when they have time available. What's important is what works for you. Earlier in this thread someone claimed that I was shilling. Again, I just want to make sure the facts are clear. Not sure where you got your info goodfellow, but I hope you do better homework for your trading and investments! Cash
Let me give you another name for this strategy. It's called selling naked puts. It has the exact same risk profile. In fact, selling naked puts has a slightly better risk profile in that your risk is bounded by zero. In a pair trade, theoretically one side can go to zero and the stock you are short is unbounded. You will notice pair traders and naked put sellers have symmetrically identical p&l's. Months and months of small consistent gains with huge losses inbetween that wipe out all the profits and in some cases the entire account. Of course Don will never allow naked put selling as the commissions generated from trading the pairs is substantially more then one selling naked puts month after month after month.
I'm a little skeptical of this claim after reading this month's issue of Trader Monthly in which Bob Bright spilled the beans on his trading strategy. It turns out Bob made most of his money last year loading up on shares of Providian while it was tanking. The stock was in free fall and Bob felt this company was just too good to be selling off this hard so he started accumulating the stock. He placed bids every .05 or .10 down. The stock went against him over 50%!!!!!!!!!!!! And true to form, like every other martingale strategy taught at the Bright Trading boot camp, Bob decides he is going to keep buying all the way to zero. And it almost got there! It turns out PVN did recover and actually traded into the teens and Bob made a fortune, 15 to 20 million or so. I'm sorry, that is not trading. It's called gambling. Bob maybe a great poker player but this trade he had on is a great tell to how he views risk taking and trading in general. I'm sorry, but like Shania Twain likes to say, that don't impress me much.
He has done that several times Maverick and so far come out smelling mostly like roses. For example: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=125776&highlight=bob#post125776 I wrote on ET about Bobs PVN trade a almost two years ago, but now I cannot find it The PVN trade may have been more gambling than trading, but I doubt the MRK/LLY trade is. The real point is that unless you are already rich, you can't make either play. nitro
I agree, but I have no idea what the other gentleman is talking about. By "enveloping" we try to make markets on the same side as the Specialist, by taking advantage of "trade-throughs" - when the Sp gaps the stock. I would like your comment on "Covered call writing" or simply buying stock and selling calls...is that not the same risk reward as selling naked puts? I think it really is, and would never suggest covered call writing as a strategy (unless you already have a portfolio of long stock, and are trying to extract some time dacay income). Don